Michelle Obama Will Speak at Maya Angelou Memorial Service

First Lady Michelle Obama will deliver remarks at a memorial service for Maya Angelou, the White House confirmed.

Ms. Angelou’s close friend and mentee Oprah Winfrey has been helping to organize the renowned poet’s memorial service, to be held Saturday at Wake Forest University, said Ms. Angelou’s longtime agent Helen Brann.

The private service will be held in the university’s Wait Chapel which seats 2,250 people and has hosted two presidential debates. The memorial will be livestreamed for the public beginning around 10 a.m. EDT on Saturday. Ms. Winfrey, who has said she will speak at the service, was in Winston-Salem earlier this week to help with logistics, local news reported. A representative for Ms. Winfrey confirmed that the television host is helping to plan the service.

“Thank God Oprah’s on the scene—she’s got the apparatus to do something of this nature,” said Ms. Brann.

In a statement released shortly after Ms. Angelou’s death, Ms. Winfrey called the poet a “mentor, mother / sister, and friend since my early 20’s.” “She was there for me always, guiding me through some of the most important years of my life,” Ms. Winfrey said in her statement. “I loved her and I know she loved me. I will profoundly miss her.”

Ms. Angelou died Wednesday of last week at her home in Winston-Salem at age 86. She had held the position of Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest since 1982.